Iron Night (35 page)

The Colt was now completely pinned beneath me and the Ithaca lost somewhere in the grass, even if I'd had a free hand to reach for one of them, which I didn't, as both were more than engaged with keeping Soli's claws just a hairsbreadth away from my throat. I could actually feel the air movement each time she reached for me, and I was horribly aware of the vulnerability of every artery that pumped through that spot she was reaching for with single-minded ferocity. I glanced around desperately, but Prudence was still pinned down—Amadon was writhing on the ground, both hands trying to push his intestines back inside his belly, but Shoney and Nokke moved around him without even a glance. Suzume's eyes were fixed on me as she stumbled to her feet, her long knife now painted red from tip to handle, and the crumpled body of her assailant behind her, but I could feel my arms shaking with the effort of holding Soli back, and I knew that Suze wouldn't reach me in time.

The crack of a pistol cut through all the noises of the fighting, and Soli was suddenly thrown backward and off of me as a gout of blood exploded from her shoulder. I looked, and five feet behind me stood Matt, his face pale, his eyes fixed and wide, but his feet were planted solidly and his hands were steady on his .38.

My stunned wonder at how the hell he'd followed me was washed away at the realization that he'd seen it all—monsters fighting on the grass of Lincoln Woods State Park—and for just one heartbeat I was frozen and unable to move past the knowledge of what this meant. But then the world came rushing back to me and there was no time to pause. Soli was pushing herself back up when I rolled forward and pulled out my Colt, and the first bullet caught her just below her neck. For one horrible moment the eyes that stared at me with utter surprise were Beth's, but I gritted my teeth and sent a second bullet into her head, followed immediately by a third, and the skinwalker went down. Half the skin of Beth's face was gone, revealing the shiny black carapace beneath it, and just enough to realize that not only did the skinwalker actually have mandibles, but also they were still moving, because Soli was dropped but still alive, and now her limbs were actually pushing her upper body upright again.

I drew in a panting, ragged breath and I lifted the gun, intending to empty the rest of the clip, but then Suzume reached me. With no hesitation at all, she brought that long knife down and began the systematic removal of Soli's head. That white fluid I remembered from before foamed out, but after one last spasm the skinwalker stilled and didn't move again.

I was wobbling to my feet, and I forced myself to look back at Matt, frightened about whether his gun would be aimed at me now, but when I did I shouted desperately to Suze. The Neighbor with the soccer-mom hair had skirted the edge of the fighting, and while Matt had been focused on me and the skinwalker, she had attacked him with that butcher knife. Now he was on the ground, one hand pressing against a large red stain on his arm, and she was coming toward him again. At my shout, Suze was moving for them. I would've followed, but I saw Prudence stumble, and Nokke and Shoney moved in like jackals for the kill.

Trusting Suzume to keep Matt safe, I tightened my grip on the Colt and ran toward my sister. But just before I could reach them enough to trust a shot, Shoney attacked Prudence. The wide smile that crossed her face was his only warning, and one of her manicured hands shot out, grabbed one of his antlers, and with a low grunt from my sister a bone-crunching sound echoed beside Shoney's hysterical scream of agony as she ripped his antler completely from his head, accompanied by an enormous rush of blood, chunks of his skull, and several pieces of things I didn't even want to try to identify. Shoney collapsed onto the ground, twitching spastically as the blood continued to flow, and I could see the horror spread across Nokke's face as he realized that all of my sister's attention was now solely fixated on him.

I took a deep breath. “That's enough, Prudence,” I yelled, and she stopped to look at me, Shoney's antler still gripped in her hand. Nokke looked at me as well, and this time his gaze swept across the clearing, and I could see the moment when he realized that he was the only one still left standing. Glancing behind me, I saw that the soccer mom was down, and Suzume was crouched beside Matt, putting pressure on his arm. She gave me a quick nod, reassuring me that everything was fine. I looked over at Lilah and saw that she'd managed to lower Felix and was now standing in front of him and her sister, the borrowed gun shaking in her hands.

I focused again on Nokke. “Are you ready to hear what I have to say, or do I let my sister take you apart one piece at a time?”

“Talk,” the elf gritted between his clenched serrated teeth.

“This is over,” I said. “Your breeding experiments are over as well. Keep the seven-eighths crosses you created, but if one more of those is born than is already conceived, the Scotts will take the price out of your skin.” A spasm of rage passed over Nokke's face, but after a pause he dipped his head in reluctant agreement. I continued. “Clean up your dead.” Movement caught the corner of my eye, and I glanced over. Seeing that negotiations had begun, Lilah had put the gun away and was leading the two younger Neighbors toward us. I glanced at her grandfather and added another condition. “It's clear that we can no longer trust you to behave, so from this moment onward your representative will be making monthly reports about your activities to my family.”

Nokke frowned. “What representative?” I pointed silently at Lilah. He fumed, “You cannot be—” But Prudence inched forward, clearly eager to inflict more damage, and he broke off his statement, sucking his anger down again. “Yes. My granddaughter will deliver the reports.”

“In perfect health,” I said coldly. “With no complaints about how she has been treated by her relatives.” He nodded, clearly beyond speech. I looked over at my sister, who gave me a sign of approval. “Do you have anything else you think should be added, Prudence?” I asked.

My sister smiled slowly. “Only that our mother will doubtless have some ideas later on how the elves can . . . atone . . . for breaking her laws. I'm sure that I will be seeing more of them.”

I nodded. “Sounds fair.” I looked at Nokke again, seeing the rage and pride battling across his inhuman yet inhumanly beautiful face. There was no regret there. Not for the death he'd led his followers to, and certainly not for the deaths he'd caused. Without a word I quickly aimed the Colt and squeezed off a shot. Nokke fell to the ground, clutching his knee. I nodded, satisfied. “Now we're done,” I told the Ad-hene. Crawling, his expression now pained, the elf reached a hand toward Amadon, still lying on the ground but his belly already knitting before our eyes, and hauled him backward. In a moment they were both gone, hidden back inside Underhill. Behind them were the bodies, including Shoney, who lay rigid in death.

My sister smiled at me, a grisly sight with her hands bloody up to the elbow. “Excellently done, Fortitude,” she complimented me, and for a moment I relaxed. But she had turned her attention to Matt and was moving toward him, ignoring the hand I threw out to try to catch her, speaking as she moved toward the injured man. “Matthew McMahon,” she said, pleasure dripping from her voice. “You really do seem to have quite a talent for making a nuisance of yourself. But this is the end, at last.”

Suzume dropped Matt's arm and moved backward, and I could see the recognition fill Matt's face as my sister stalked toward him. His eyes darted from the body of Shoney to the ripped antler still lying on the ground to my sister's bloody hands, and back up to her face, and even as death incarnate came for him I could see him putting the pieces together. And the look on his face when he finally solved the case that had driven him for seventeen years was equal parts horror and euphoria.

“You,” he breathed. “Whatever you are, it was you. You killed Brian and Jill Mason that night; then your family covered it up.” As the truth that I'd spent so long hiding from him echoed from his mouth, I froze, my heart seeming to slow in my chest at the blow.

She laughed as she moved closer. “At least you can die a contented man, with no last secrets nagging at your mind.”

Her arm was drawing back when I was able to move again, and I moved with the vampire speed that I'd only managed once before in my life, and I caught her hand in mine before she could strike.

She half turned to frown at me. “Brother, this is necessary. Even you can't deny that the detective has seen far more than we can allow.”

I squeezed my hand tightly and shook my head, struggling for a reason, any reason, that would stop her. “This is a decision for Mother, not us,” I stuttered, playing for any extra minute of time that would give me a chance to find a better plan.

Prudence's frown deepened, her eyes narrowing with that old suspicion that I hadn't seen in the past few days. She pulled her hand out of my grip, and she was strong enough that there was nothing I could do to hold it. “Don't play, Fortitude,” she spit. “You know that there's nothing Mother would do except wonder why we bothered to ask her. This dog has yapped at our heels for years, and it was only for your sake that he wasn't taken care of long before now. Now he has seen truths that were not meant for him.” Her lip curled. “If it's weakness that drives you, just turn your head. It will be done in a moment.”

She turned back to Matt, and I knew that there was nothing I could do—I couldn't persuade her; I couldn't overpower her. Even Suze looked at me and slowly shook her head, knowing even better than I did that this had been a foregone conclusion the moment Matt had somehow found his way to the park and stepped foot in the clearing.

There was nothing I could do.

But that wasn't true.

I pressed the Colt against my sister's head, just at her temple. She froze at the feeling, and her brilliant blue eyes darted over to stare at me, and her jaw loosened in shock.

“What are you doing?” she asked, the shock already wearing off, replaced quickly by a brewing rage that promised to be far deadlier than what we had just faced from the elves. “You can't possibly be serious.”

“Don't push me, Prudence,” I warned her, and I knew in that long moment that I was capable of pulling that trigger, and looking into her eyes I knew that she knew as well. “Remember what happened to Luca.”

Her upper lip curled and revealed her fully extended fangs. But I kept my arm steady, not even daring to breathe, and one slow step at a time, Prudence drew back from Matt. I kept the Colt raised, lifting a second hand to steady my grip, and watched as she moved away.

“You are right in one small way, brother,” she said, never glancing away from me. “All decisions truly rest with our mother. But who will be the first to present this one to her?” And with that my sister turned and ran up the path to where the cars were parked.

I glanced down frantically. Matt was staring at me, an expression on his face that I couldn't even bear to process, but Suze had dropped beside him and pressed her hands against his arm again. “Go!” she yelled at me. “I can handle this.”

Behind me I felt a sharp push, and Lilah was behind me, nodding in agreement with Suze. “You need to get there first,” she agreed.

I didn't need any more than that, and I was running up the path after Prudence, running faster than I knew I should've been able to, and I could feel the tendons in my legs shrieking with pain at the demands I was placing on them twice in one night. I reached the parking lot just as Prudence was backing up her Lexus in a cascade of gravel, and I was inside the Fiesta just as she pulled out.

As if sensing my need, the Fiesta started on the first attempt—something it hadn't managed at any point in the past two years. Without even pausing I threw it into reverse, and the tires squealed in protest as I set off in pursuit, beginning the long journey to Newport.

Despite all its efforts,
the Fiesta's engine was no match for what was under the hood in my sister's Lexus, and every time we hit a straight patch of road she slid easily ahead of me. But I'd driven the route from Providence to Newport more times in the past few months than she probably had in the last decade, and I knew every passing zone, every banked turn, and every side road that I could slide down and make up a minute while she fumed at a light. She was also restricted by the apparent desire to not overly flout the speed limit and risk a ticket, which helped keep us close enough that fifty anxious, sweaty minutes later, she was less than a car length in front of me as we squealed down Ocean Drive and turned into our mother's driveway.

She was out of the Lexus first and running toward the front door, and I didn't even turn the Fiesta off as I stumbled out of the driver's seat and chased her, ignoring the steam that was rising from under its hood as I raced across the white gravel drive and took the pretty marble steps in one bone-jarring jump. I could feel the throb of my mother's presence upstairs, but Chivalry wasn't there—a frightening thought, and my heart pounded even harder at the knowledge that I'd be arguing for Matt's life without the help of my brother.

Inside the foyer, I caught sight of Prudence's disappearing figure as she darted down the hallway that led to the back of the house. I hesitated for a moment, unsure why she was going in the wrong direction when the pull of my mother's presence was clearly coming from upstairs. But I shook my head, thanking my own unusual good luck, and ran toward the marble staircase that swept elegantly to the second floor.

I'd just reached the landing halfway up the stairs when an enormous crash and a scream echoed from the direction that my sister had taken, and I turned around and was pounding down the steps and toward the sound before I even stopped to ponder what could possibly be happening. The truth was that I had no idea, so I simply let the instinctual knowledge that whatever side trip Prudence had chosen could not possibly bode well for me drive my decision-making process.

The sound led me to the small butler's pantry that Madeline had constructed around the basement door that led to my host father, Henry's, cell. A member of the staff was always on duty here, making a show of polishing my mother's incredible assortment of silver while actually standing guard over the most closely guarded secret of the house. Now the door to the basement was hanging open and the staff member on guard, Patricia, an older woman who'd been in my mother's employment since her teens, was rolling on the ground, her upper body hunched around her arm, which was bent at an unnatural angle. Her polishing rag and one of the largest soup tureens lay on the parquet floor beside her.

“Oh, Mr. Scott,” she gasped when she saw me, even in extremis being unable to call me by my first name. “Your sister—” And then she looked at the yawning door. Whoever was posted in the butler's pantry had control of the key that unlocked the door to the basement—it was a position given to only the most trusted of Madeline's staff members, the ones who had been with her the longest. If she said that someone wasn't allowed downstairs—even one of her own children—then whoever was posted there would obey. The key was still sticking out of the lock—apparently Prudence had taken it from Patricia and let herself in.

I shouted loudly for help, and, already hearing the scattered footsteps of some of the other staff, hopped over Patricia's recumbent form and ran down the basement steps as quickly as I could. There were plenty of people on hand at any hour who could hold Patricia's hand and call an ambulance, but whatever was going on down there was something that could only be left to the family.

At the bottom of the steps was the kind of serious security door preferred by banks or secret military prisons on television. Normally it opened only after it had scanned an authorized thumbprint, but apparently my sister hadn't been on the short list, because now the heavy metal door had been ripped half off its hinges and hung drunkenly from the ones that remained. I pushed my way past the remains and hurried into the sitting room of my host father's caretaker, Mr. Albert.

Mr. Albert was built along the same lines as a Sherman tank, and in the years before he came to work for my mother he had earned a living as a professional wrestler. I'd known him since infancy, and even on my wiggliest days as a toddler, when he told me to be quiet, I'd obeyed. Now, like Patricia one floor above him, he was pulling himself off the ground. One full wall of his sitting room was made completely out of glass so that he could observe Henry's behavior at all times, and through the glass I could see my sister walking quickly toward the enclosure where my host father lived.

I yelled my sister's name, but she didn't respond. I watched as she walked across the red line painted across the floor that no one except Mr. Albert or my mother were allowed to cross—largely for our own safety.

In his cage, Henry prowled as Prudence approached him. With his patrician features and dark hair with dignified wings of gray at his temples, Henry could've passed for any of the Boston Brahman politicians that my mother regularly entertained over dinner, except for the white surgical scrubs that he wore and the complete lack of sanity in his eyes. While Henry had fathered me in the traditional sense, every drop of blood that flowed through his veins belonged to my mother in a very literal way; he had been bled out and had her blood pumped into him, a process that had altered him physiologically right down to the DNA, leaving him changed enough to breed with my similarly changed host mother, but it had shattered his mind, leaving him pathologically homicidal. Over the years that he'd been imprisoned in Madeline's basement, even as he lived in a plastic cube with every interaction monitored more closely than the moon landing, he had killed two people.

And he was my tie to humanity, his life the last barrier between me and the full transition. My host mother, Grace's, suicide had begun the process, and Henry's death would finish it.

A horrible suspicion filled me, and I ran past Mr. Albert, calling Prudence's name again, but she didn't even glance backward. Reaching out with both hands, she gripped the edges of the door that kept Henry contained, and with a visible effort ripped it open, peeling it back from its locks like the top of a sardine container.

Henry was loose the moment the door was wide enough for him to pass through. Prudence reached for him, her deadly intent clear, but the changes my mother's blood had wrought on Henry's body revealed themselves when he moved quickly out of the range of her hands, then drove one fist into her stomach with enough power to knock a vampire more than two centuries old back and against the wall. The sight of that froze me where I stood—I'd faced a host before and with Suze's help I'd killed him, but this was Henry. Respect for his strange twilight part of my existence had always been thoroughly twined with the danger he posed to me. I'd never touched either of my host parents—they'd always been strange, piteous, yet frightening presences behind separating walls. And when Henry raced toward me with a speed that was not quite a vampire's but all too close, I found myself unable to move.

But he wasn't coming for me. I felt the breeze as he moved past me, close enough that I could've touched him had I not been as useful as Lot's wife post-saltification, but his target was Mr. Albert. With the loyalty of twenty years, Mr. Albert had pulled himself off the floor where Prudence had thrown him, collected his stun gun, and come to do his duty and contain Henry.

There were medals on the walls of Mr. Albert's sitting room from a grateful nation that attested to his courage, but there was fear on his face as Henry came toward him. I finally moved, realizing the danger, but too late. Mr. Albert's stun gun did its job, administering a jolt of electricity that filled the room with the smell of burned ozone and singed hair, but even as Henry's shoulders spasmed, his hands never stopped moving, ripping at Mr. Albert's chest with unnatural strength, just as his mouth closed on Mr. Albert's throat, then opened again as he began his best attempt to eat his jailor alive. And then Mr. Albert's screams filled the room.

I wrapped my hands around Henry's broad shoulders and yanked backward as hard as I could, but he gave a low growl and held on with all the stubborn strength of a dog with a bone.

I couldn't move Henry, and the wet, masticating sounds he was making were a horrible complement to Mr. Albert's screams. I threw all my weight into pulling Henry, managing only to shift both of them a few inches, as Henry was not loosening his grip.

“Prudence,” I screamed, desperate enough to appeal to her. “Help me!”

She was there then, her face unreadable as she responded to my plea, and somehow the two of us pulled Henry off, and with a grunt she flung him off Mr. Albert and a few feet away. Mr. Albert fell to the ground, and I dropped to my knees, desperately trying to decide where I should press my hands and administer pressure in the mass of blood that was now his throat and chest, even as his eyes rolled horribly and only small, strangled noises emerged from his throat.

“What are you doing?” I begged my sister, putting my hands over Mr. Albert's heart almost at random. “Why are you doing this?”

Then I was suddenly lifted by the collar of my shirt and shaken with enough force to feel my brain slosh in my skull. My sister's face thrust just an inch away from my own, and she glared into my eyes as I hung from her hand like a misbehaving puppy.

“This is for your own welfare, Fortitude,” she ground out as she glared at me, “and I will not have you continue to
interfere
!” With that she threw me hard, and for a second I was completely airborne before I slammed against the wall, my head giving a sickening thud. I slid down, dazed and blinking, all the breath knocked out of my lungs and unable to do anything except watch as my sister stalked forward toward where Henry was crouched.

Henry fought and even landed a few more blows, but with no further distractions my sister quickly emerged on top. Long cuts on Henry's face and arms oozed unnaturally dark and viscous blood, and when my sister wrapped one hand around his throat and drew her other back for the killing blow, Henry actually seemed to relax in her grip and wait for the inevitable.

But the blow didn't fall—Prudence's hand was caught and held by Madeline, who had moved so quickly that in my rattled state I hadn't even registered her approach. Now my tiny, ancient mother stood holding Prudence's hand, and her rage was so deep that for the first time in my life I saw my mother's glowing blue eyes change to black pools.

“My will was clear,” Madeline growled, and neither her Barbara Bush haircut nor her conservative pink housedress could conceal that this was an alpha predator. Those long, fixed fangs gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights. “Why have you crossed me?”

Prudence didn't loosen her grip on Henry's neck, and her needlelike fangs were fully extended when she snarled back at my mother. “Whether it is sentimentality or ego that holds you back, it is enough. Fortitude's transition has been held back for two decades, and I am saying
enough
. Perhaps it is too late; maybe he's ruined—more human than vampire. But I am putting a stop to your games.”

With her free hand Madeline swiped at her daughter, and Prudence dropped Henry to block it. Henry lay on his side, not moving as far as I could see, but that dark blood was staining even more of his formerly white scrubs, and I was unable to see from my vantage point whether he stayed still out of passivity or because of injury.

Madeline and Prudence had now locked hands, each pushing against the other with enough effort to outline every muscle in their arms. Both women were sweating heavily enough that their hair looked like they'd just emerged from the shower, their hands shaking wildly with their effort. For an endless moment neither could move the other and they were locked in place, but then there was movement and it was from my mother. It was so slow that at first I thought I was imagining it, but then I realized what I was seeing—Prudence was pushing our mother's arms backward. She was winning.

I saw the moment that Prudence realized it herself—the flare of triumph across her face. But then Madeline gave a low growl that seemed to emerge from the floor beneath her feet, and her black eyes began to glow. When she pushed again, it was with a strength that my sister couldn't match, and Prudence was forced back and then down. First into a small crouch, then down until her knees touched the cement floor and she was kneeling before my mother, gasping with the effort. Madeline continued pushing, hard resolve on her face, until an awful cracking filled the room and Prudence's hands flopped backward on identically broken wrists.

A howl of pain emerged from my sister's throat and she seemed to fold inside herself. My mother stood still for several heartbeats, her chest heaving as she wobbled on her feet. Those gleaming black eyes bled down again to her natural blue, but somehow her eyes seemed duller than usual, as if the conflict had exhausted her on more than a physical level.

Madeline stared down at Prudence as if nothing in the room existed, from me crumpled against the wall, just barely able to lift myself to my elbows, to Mr. Albert's mangled body, now horribly still, to Henry, still crouched where my sister had dropped him. Her rage was gone, and when she spoke to Prudence, our mother's voice was actually tender. “My darling, my dove, my daughter,” she crooned, looking down at Prudence. “So strong, and almost ready to leave my nest. But not today, love.” And one of her hands flashed out and another crack filled the room, followed immediately by my sister's agonized scream as Madeline broke her leg at the thigh, the bone protruding horribly from the wound. “And not tomorrow,” Madeline continued, her voice still gentle even as she kicked out with one foot and Prudence's ribs snapped. “My will is still your law.” She looked down at my sister and then leaned down to run the tips of her fingers so lovingly over Prudence's cheek. There was a strange, fierce pride written across my mother's face. “But soon, dearest, very soon now,” she promised. Then she straightened up, or as straight as her age-slumped shoulders could achieve, and with a stern nod said, “Now go,” in a tone that brooked no dissent.